The Original
by Random-Battlecry
Summary: She bought him some of his own. The least he could do is share. Set after Fear Her but basically spoiler free, apart from the marmalade. Oneshot, 10Rose.


**Title: The Original  
Genre: Humor/Romance  
Pairing: 10/Rose  
Spoilers: set after "Fear Her" so some spoilers for that episode, nothing drastic.  
Feedback: is so loved.  
A/N: A stellar example of the way my mind works at two in the morning. Its the almost-smut! One shot.**

**A/N II: Mea-kh! Dig it! (grin)**

**The Original  
**

She started with, "I brought you some of your own."

He looked up at her, a bit bemused. "Hmm?" Eyebrows quirked, lips tucked inwards, dimples appeared.

She produced the jar from behind her and waved it vaguely at him. It took a second for his eyes to draw away from hers and transfer to the label, and then another few seconds to read it as it was moving back and forth.

"Marmalade!"he said, a grin breaking over his face. "Marvellous!"

A few strides and he was next to her, the jar caught up in his own hand and the lid being twisted off with alacrity and enthusiasm that was entirely to be expected from him. Rose twigged her bangs out of her eyes with one hand and grinned at him.

"I was really craving it," he informed her happily. "Bit of presumption from me to dig in where I wasn't invited, I know, but after all it was only Trish."

"Only Trish," she repeated, raising her eyebrows. "Only someone you just met only this mornin'."

"Ah," he said vaguely, running a finger over the label as he read it closely, and stepping away from her, "what makes you think I haven't met her before? I've met— sort of— everyone before— just in general, you understand— the Original? The actual Original Marmalade? Is it even possible?" He glanced back up at her and his eyes narrowed. "Just where did you pick this up?"

She shrugged. "Tesco's?"

"Not a small Dutch farm in the 1600's?"

"No, don't think so—"  
"Ah, not the original then," he said, with the air of a man who is on more familiar ground, and he dipped two fingers into the pristine surface of the marmalade. She was a few feet away from him now, but her eyes trained on him automatically, watching as he stuck his fingers in his mouth and sucked them off with every evidence of enjoyment. As a matter of fact she found it extremely difficult to look away.

He pulled them out of his mouth with a pop, looked at his wet fingers with a grin of delight, transferred the grin to her and positively beamed.

"Original or not, its good!"

"Oh," she said, a bit faintly. "Oh— um, I'm glad. Glad you like it."

"_Like_ it, its _heavenly_, a little bit of, of heaven!"

"First one I saw on the shelf," she said, slightly embarrassed, and shrugged her shoulders a little.

He looked back at the jar with the joy of proud ownership. "Marmalade. Can't tell you how much I've been craving marmalade. Its wonderful, really, Rose, you've got to try it," and now he'd dipped his fingers again, scooped some up, and advanced on her with genial, generous, but definite purpose gleaming in slightly beady brown eyes.

"Uh," she said, "er," and taking advantage of her second of uncertainty he cooed, "Oh, Rose, no, _really_," and shoved it in her open mouth.

If Rose was going to be truly honest with herself she was focusing a bit more on the fact that it was in fact, in fact, the Doctor's fingers covered in marmalade that were currently inserted in her mouth, rather than concentrating solely on the marmalade itself, and therefore her approving, "Mmm," mumbled around the digits, was less than upfront and honest in what exactly it was approving of. He was still grinning at her though, not making a move to remove himself from her, and she swallowed convulsively and set to licking the marmalade off his fingertips.

He raised his eyebrows at her questioningly. "Good, innit?"

"Uhn," she said around his fingers, and nodded.

Tilting his head to one side, the grin dimming a little, he withdrew his fingers and returned his attention to the jar. Rose took a deep breath and hissed it out of her open mouth as quietly as she could. She'd always suspected him of being a bit telepathic— did he have any idea as to the tenor of her thoughts at this point? _Anything_ of his being shoved into _anything_ of hers— right, well, if he _was_ telepathic, there was a dead giveaway. She scrutinized him carefully to see if he was blushing. It didn't appear so, but the light in here was so odd that—

"Less sugar than most marmalades," he said, nodding his head. He apparently had had doubts previously about the amount of sugar in most marmalades, and the fact that his marmalade had less had obviously negated these niggling uncertainties. Oh, well, there was one question answered. Rose let out another breath, a bit less quietly this time. He remained oblivious. "Cornstarch?" he muttered in the tones that a Shakespearean actor might have used to question his own existence. One eyebrow quirked and he turned the jar in his hand, seeking new nutritional information and further confirmation that his marmalade was far better than any marmalade that, for instance, Trish might have possessed.

Right.

Rose took in one more breath and held it. She stepped towards him.

"I bought it for you to eat it, not read it," she said with a carefully-executed show of impatience, dipped her pointer finger in the jar, and offered it to him. There was a pause.

His eyes abandoned the infinite intricacies of the percent daily values chart, and met hers. The second they joined gazes she wished she hadn't gone anywhere near the jar; how could she forget, even for a second, that there was that undercurrent of sharp awareness beneath all the Doctor's irrelevancies? He'd be playing comic relief, and all the while under the surface things would be bubbling madly away, and she _knew_ that from a million other instances. There was a wariness in the Doctor's gaze that should have been infinitely at odds with the surety with which he took her finger into his mouth. Just the side of it, the side to the right of that crease above his upper lip, and just the tip of her finger, the absolute tip, but his mouth was open and a swirl of his tongue worked her fingertip deeper in, curled around it like a warm wet embrace, and then finally his lips closed over her knuckle; she was forced to exhale and then inhale quickly to keep herself from passing out. She had the uncomfortable but not entirely unpleasant feeling that she'd just discovered what it was like to be the male of the species, without all the fuss and expense of an actual sex change.

She still couldn't look away from him. He wouldn't let her go. He took his own sweet time about things, and his tongue worked away, collecting all the traces of the marmalade from her skin; and probably the taste of her skin as well, she shouldn't wonder, the salt combining with the less-than-other-marmalade-amounts of sugar to create a likely flavor burst. She would have guessed that he enjoyed it, but that was just because he didn't spit her finger out immediately and complain, as his expression certainly didn't betray anything other than absolute, controlled, concentrated gravity. He tongued the pad of her finger like he was taking fingerprints for a criminal investigation; he plumbed the shallow depths between the level set of her finger and her nail; he stroked along the entirety in three long and lingering passes, and that time she did shiver. Apparently satisfied, he let her finger slip out of his mouth, and she felt her feet lead her into a stumbling retreat.

He passed his tactile tongue over his lips, and the immense gravity of his face turned into an expression of thoughtful contemplation.

"Rose," he said suddenly, and she jumped, "are you _really_ that turned on by fingerplay?"  
She started; she stumbled; she stammered.

"I— I dunno— I, uh— are— are you really that turned on by marmalade?"

Even the thoughtful contemplation was displaced by the enormity of the grin that appeared on his face.

"Marmalade's _good_," he proclaimed. "And— " He hoisted the jar to eye level. "Not a significant source of potassium which— could be good if you're really allergic to potassium, I suppose. Fiber? No fiber?" He scrutinized the label again and she let out a sigh that was half disappointment and half relief; at the sound his eyes flicked back up to her's. "Oh, let us not forget, however." And the jar was thumped firmly down onto the grate of the TARDIS at his feet. He was immediately in front of her in a few steps, pressing close, and she would have stepped back but there was nowhere to go and she didn't want to, anyway— not really.

"A proper thank you is in order," he breathed against her lips, and kissed them, one at a time, lower one first with a slow draw deep into his mouth, reluctant to release it, then the upper, tilting his head nearly sideways and preparing angles, thinking things through and anticipating; which is how he knew how to catch her when her knees buckled, and just the proper order in which to lay them both, by degrees, onto the floor. He released her mouth to return his attention to her fingers for a bit, repeating the performance of earlier with each one; she concentrated on his clothes, and the thought crossed her mind that after all he _hadn't_ worn a tie today— was there any way he possibly could have— well— time machine, after all—

Things were going along quite nicely when his straying eyes caught sight of something he wasn't too pleased about.

"What the— _contains no actual fruit_? The _hell_!"


End file.
